Month: February 2025

Sonnet 697

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
Why write another ‘once upon a time’—
Some tired verse about ‘glad days of yore’,
Thin veil a ‘dark and stormy night’ in rhyme
Presaging voltas with ‘calm before the storm’?
If ink were blood, some dull and jagged phrase
Might edge my throat and leave me to my doom,
Black words on paper spreading ‘cross the page
As gore upon the floors of slaughter rooms.
This pen’s a sleek stiletto in my heart
That I drew forth, thus sealing here my fate,
With little time to draft my final part—
Spilled iron gall to mark my doom and date;
A lyric martyr, fading, quill in hand…
Murmuring softly, ‘I write therefore I am’.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 696

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
Said men stand all as equals—morally,

As right should be before the eyes of God;
Yet truth when weighed pure philosophically
Still begs of proof where science strikes at odds.
Each human trait inscribed in sternest genes,
The acid text that governs who we are;
Where every strand of our encoded being
Determines reach … and oft to which star.
We are unequal, sage geneticists claim,
Each one unique—a mortal unicorn—
Mere pawns in evolutionary games,
Perpetually striving for that perfect form.
Since no script says what yet the world might be;
—All human hope lies in diversity.
© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 695

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
If you should leave today what would I do,
Lost in the vastness of this barren room—
Knowing that I’m now one; no longer two…
A Stygian hush descending like a tomb,
Eyes turned to heaven in solemnity
Beseeching Elysium but for cause,
Some reasoned wrong that razed the sanctity
Of two hearts joined beneath the eyes of God.
Perhaps there is a measure in this sorrow,
Some further act beyond an anguished end,
Some encore grand that wakes me on the morrow—
So love means more than words writ on the strand.
But if not so, and hope stands ever barred;
My tears shall write ‘Selena’ in the stars.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 694

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
There seems to be no seemly way for dying:
Dank sepulchers with candles fending gloom;
A feather bed with loved ones softly crying…
The sudden dark before the cannon’s boom.
A lone procession by white stallions drawn,
The sooty grimness of the funeral pyre,
The solemn sounds of Taps at break of dawn—
Such rites make Death the one whom we admire.
Give me some nameless plot beside the sea,
A lonely path where lovers come and go;
A quiet mound beneath a shady tree,
Some reverent place that only spirits know.
Yes, dig the grave and lay me down with care;
Blessed by sweet tears of love—but not despair.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 693

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
For I have raptured lovelies in my day
And sipped the nectar of youth’s tender bloom,
Ensnared fair maids with but a glance or say,
Enchanting hearts across a crowded room.
In youthful times I stood a grinning king
Ruling with smiles and gestures, words of wit;
Sweet echoes of lost harems still may sing
Around that throne whereon I once did sit.
Some say it was a war with love I waged,
For true love’s sword stayed surely scabbard borne;
More true, perhaps, against blind lust I raged—
While still a pact against commitment sworn…
No—at my flank, the endless siege of time;
I fought commitment, to freedom e’re consigned.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 692

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
Ephemeral beauty whose fair light’s pursued
In burning zeal born of primal desire;
That vain effulgence of the often wooed
That leads the meekest heart to full conspire
And wile away love’s long sweet cherished hours,
Immersed in smiles and silver tears divine;
So moves the unseen strength of beauty’s power,
That tempts the soul with beacons none outshine.
Rapt souls held captive to a fantasy
Bound on hope’s gloried ship to ever sail…
Seeking empyrean destiny,
Connubial bliss to ever life regale—
Purblind pursuit of dreams locked in the mind;
Ten thousand ships might sail, for one to find.
© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 691

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
Songbirds stir to sing sweet hymns of love
As if they knew the Day of Hearts was here,
And pour their ardor out from boughs above
To lift up hearts and coax a happy tear.
The weight of winter, heavy on the land
Belies the mirth now rising from the trees,
Melodic minstrel choirs both meek and grand
Waft choruses that warble on the breeze;
And zephyrs softer than the breaths of spring
Hearken to that gay oratorio,
Borne through the wood by songsters on the wing
Who seek those pleasured places lovers know;
And heart chords tuned by Valentine this day
Resounds in songs all loving hearts convey.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 690

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
Here so bides Valentine, that blood-red Saint
Martyred now in pagan hopes and dreams;
Who could have known that Christian hearts would paint
His sacred sacrifice with…joyous screams
And all the gaudy flowers know to man…
Sundry confections honeyed, soft and sweet—
While he lay on those cold and callous stones
Listening for the sound of Julia’s feet.
What were his thoughts in those long final hours?
Beseeching friends in letters that they pray
For his salvation, that a higher power
Might give him peace and chart another way?
But then—soft steps upon the prison stairs,
And so the answer to all hopes and prayers.

© Loubert S Suddaby.  All Rights Reserved.

Sonnet 689

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
That dreaded day the Reaper knocks my door
And takes me by the hand to where souls go,
I shall not pause, no mercy to implore
For he is but a minister of woe;
A grim dark escort bridging life and death,
Base servant of some master far beyond,
Dire highwayman that steals living breath—
Replete of pleas that his rude choice be wrong.
He has taken many a hand of friend
And yet of dearest family members too
While loved ones begged reprieve until the end,
 For love of God — still nothing there to do.
I’m not afraid, I’ve seen his surly frown…
Yet one angst plays…will I go up or down?

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Ecclesia Cathedra

On By Loubert S SuddabyIn PoemsLeave a comment
It is the greatest human leisure
To lie at peace in balmy weather
And watch the sculptured clouds on high
Give birth to forms that morph and die;
 
To dream sweet dreams that can’t be seen
Like furtive shadows on a screen,
While gentle zephyrs at their play
Cause jaunty flowers to bend and sway
 
Sweet songs tweet twitter in the trees
Punctuated by sounds of bees…
A jet black crow streaks by on high
Upon some mission, do or die;
 
Soft cotton lambs o’er brimmed with life
Purged pure of every worried strife
And by the fence a new dropped foal
On wobbled legs goes for a stroll.
 
A nearby stream soft babbles on
And will yet still when day is gone,
And then the light, ten thousand stars!
Silver Venus and ruby Mars!
 
A rising moon’s soft yellow glow
Now fawns upon the evening show,
As cricket choruses rises to sing
Wise owls to hail the songs they bring;
 
Bright fireflies now dance with light
Bejeweling purple curtained night
No greater thrill since time began—
A world at peace within His hand.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.